


Autobiographical Data: Imperial Domestic Corps Organic Unit 14532XGV, Cleaner-class, Certified Deficient

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Forced Sterilization, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Rape, also Scoundress will be a ship but it comes later, but I'm tagging appropriately for the future, movie-specific AU, there won't be anything too graphic for a while guys, with some EU elements but I'm not gonna stick too closely to Legends or new canon, yes Esell has autism because I myself am autistic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: The Empire is built on the bodies of those deemed unworthy.





	1. Entry 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story dealing with some heavy shit. Gonna lay that out there. It's somewhat autobiographical, which even the title will tell you, though I'm going to leave it up to you readers to decide what is and isn't based on the writer's life. 
> 
> Rape, violence, dehumanization, ableism, and discrimination against humans and aliens are all present in this work. Involuntary servitude is a major theme and plot point. It's not intended as a commentary on any current practices or historical slavery, not meant to speak over or ignore the voices of those whom historical or current human-world slavery has directly affected, and not written with the intent of fetishizing or romanticizing these experiences. 
> 
> Forced sterilization is a plot point in later chapters. I'll point out when it happens, but I'll warn anyone who needs to know now. This is not a commentary on human-world racism. I'm disabled; involuntary sterilizations of disabled adults were outlawed completely where I live in 1974, and my state was the first US state to pass a compulsory sterilization law for criminals and disabled and mentally ill individuals living in institutions or long-term residential care.
> 
> It's technically alternate universe but entirely canonically possible according to the films - despite being a Star Wars fan I'm choosing to ignore both Legends and Disney EU canon except in some cases and with specific characters.

Officially, there is no slavery in the Empire.

Don't bother quoting me on that, though. Official proclamations are easily made and just as easily forgotten. And besides, they have very little to do with reality here in our glorious dictatorship. I'd go so far as to say they're basically useless. There might not be anything that's _called_ slavery, but there is indentured servitude. There is private contracted labor. And there's the big one, the Service Initiative - the Residential Labor Force, and Prisoner Vocational Training, and my own branch, be it ever so humble: the Imperial Domestic Corps. Strictly humans-only here in the DC. Can't have any filthy xenos getting their disgusting alien germs on everything. I guess. The Imperial officers may act like it's a grand issue worth losing their collective mind over, but racism against nonhumans has always baffled me. I think it's probably because I've always been at the very bottom of the ladder of galactic society, looking up at everyone else.

Or something like that.

The DC is supposedly the best branch of the SI for humans to be in, though I have my doubts. When it gets cold here on Coruscant (and it _does_ get cold, no matter what the tourism holos say, and they only heat the parts of the Imperial Palace where people are staying) and I have to wrap my fingers in rags and sleep with my hands on the vent of my old caregiver droid to keep frostbite away, I daydream about a nice RLF posting in a villa on Naboo. They say the Naboo don't like the RLF as a rule, so they're very kind to the organic units who get posted to their houses. Sometimes they even adopt the units, and educate them, so they're free.

As free as you can be, anyway.

But I've jumped ahead, and I'm _supposed_ to be recording this for posterity. Not quite sure what that word means, but it was suggested to me by the recorder, so I'll use it. I want this to be around in case there's a future with no Empire and no SI and somebody wants to know what it was like for sentients who weren't rich, or soldiers, or artists, or anything at all.

I'll start back at the beginning. Sorry, future someone. If you're even out there, I mean. You're probably not.

There has to be something wrong with you for you to be placed in the Service Initiative. There has to be something wrong with you, _and_ you have to be poor and relatively badly connected. The rich and powerful take care of their own degenerates. It doesn't even have to be a big flaw - you could be a nonhuman on the wrong world, or be born into a family with enemies, or fall behind on taxes, or be poor in the wrong place. Criminal records count too - all work in Imperial prisons is PVT, and private prisons set contracts on their inmates just like the rest.

 _My_ flaw is pretty bad by DC standards. When they did my infant neuroscan, a few months after I was born, the doctors found out I was wired all wrong. Sensory sensitivity, literal thinking, trouble processing auditory input, trouble following directions, lack of ability to read nonverbal communication or body language, trouble communicating verbally, potential to cause social disturbance due to cognitive delay - all of that, laid out in my brain chart. Normally infants with severe deficiencies like that are culled if the family isn't rich enough to buy off the doctors, but my symptom cluster is variable in intensity and there's no way to predict if the sentient in question will be able to contribute to Imperial society. So I was pulled from my home and classified SI and assigned to a caregiver droid.

Thankfully, I met all my developmental milestones on time, and I learned everything my surrogate parent taught. Like reading, and writing, and basic math, and big words like "surrogate". My caregiver droid liked me, too, and so sometimes I got to watch holos it downloaded from the public Net. I owe it a lot - those holos are why I can talk like a normal sentient and not like I'm an old gonk with a basic vocal processor. I am different, though. Literal-minded and a bit slow and sometimes bad at remembering things, and I don't like some sounds or textures, and I'm nervous and meticulous and sometimes I stammer or stutter or repeat myself because I think faster than my mouth can move. And I still have to be careful, too. If I'm too different I could be culled even now, since my life doesn't belong to me. It's even in my designation: "cull if needed, no flimsywork required upon disposal of waste".

"Waste" being my body, obviously. I have to tell that to anyone who asks who I am, so they know. If I had my way I wouldn't be culled. I can control that, too. It means no meltdowns, no talking to myself, no fiddling with things in my hands, and especially no asking questions or misunderstanding orders. It's better to do something wrong and have an officer or enlisted trooper call you stupid and hit you than to ask a question and be shot for having the wrong neural layout. Most of the time they'll assume you're stupid instead of Certified Defective, too, since everyone else I know about in the DC is normal. They're poor, or from the wrong family, and that's good enough to be classified SI, but their brains are fine.

There are some too who are conscripted as adults, because they're pretty and the Emperor likes to give pretty things to his officers as rewards. Those men and women only work military parties, and they have special uniforms. Sometimes I hear rumors of a Moff or an admiral taking one for their own.

I'm not a pretty thing, in case you were wondering, future someone. I'm plain and stocky and tall and have too much body fat despite barely getting enough to eat. If I work a party it's so I can be laughed at, because I'm stupid. But I'm not complaining. I'm lucky to be alive. I've been shown great mercy.

Joke's on them, anyway. I'm only stupid about some things.

You'll notice I haven't mentioned a name yet that you can use to think of me. My designation in full, like I mentioned earlier, is "Service Initiative Imperial Domestic Corps Organic Unit 14532XGV, Cleaner-class, Certified Deficient: cull if needed, no flimsywork required upon disposal of waste", but I guess I had a name sometime. If I ever did though it got purged from my file when the SI contracted me. Instead of that I've got scannable ident tattoos on my neck below the hairline and right above where my legs and back meet. If an officer or trooper scans them they'll get my full designation, my assigned duties for that moment, and my assigned physical location.

If I'm not where I'm supposed to be or doing what I'm supposed to be doing and it's not due to an illness or someone above me using me, I'll be punished.

In the computer files, _that_ is my name.

I'm called a lot of things by officers and troopers though. Maybe you can use one of those instead of that long string of words. I'd prefer you didn't call me "Filth" or "Scum" or "Vermin", though. And "Worthless" and "Disgusting" and "Stupid" are kind of hurtful, and "Fat" and "Slut" are inaccurate. Except I get called "Slut" a lot despite not actually being one. Maybe it's because they only give me and other DC units a shift to wear to work in with no underthings.

Actually, maybe you could call me Esell. Sort of short for S-L, the first two letters in "Slut". Closer to a name than anything else, and almost kind of pretty.

Yeah. I like that. Call me Esell.


	2. Entry 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy-duty ableist rhetoric from the Imperials here, readers. Be warned.

They're looking for an excuse to cull me.

I'm confined to my closet until I stop menstruating, so I figured I'd talk to the recorder some more. Whoever assigns my orders doesn't want me bleeding on anything, or unable to focus thanks to pain. I appreciate that. I report I'm menstruating to my old caregiver droid, who stands in the corner and acts as a basic computer terminal to assign orders and take reports of sickness or other problems, and then that report is checked against previous records, and once it's verified I'm given a few days off and access to sanitary products. I have a small fresher unit in my closet for this reason - I've heard it's only those of us who bleed who get one to ourselves. It's enough to make me glad of the pain. I've used the public DC 'freshers and they're filthy and old and always have long lines.

Anyway, back to my excessively dramatic tendencies: they're looking for an excuse to cull me.

I heard that said on a holo once and I've been looking for a chance to say it ever since. It's true, too. Because of my brain, because I'm Certified Defective, it means I'm lucky to be alive. I say it now because I'm afraid I haven't exactly been clear about what it means for me to be so vastly different, even as I'm not that vastly different. Future someone, you might be saying things like ' _but aren't you an obedient and compliant and responsive worker?'_ or _'why would they cull a perfectly good organic unit that can follow directions and doesn't argue or cause trouble?'_ or _'but you're basically normal, you talk like a normal person, why are you in danger?'_ And I'll tell you right now that what you're saying makes a lot of sense if you're talking about real sentients. I don't qualify as one.

See, there's this chart, and I don't have the name for it now - ah, thank you. My caregiver droid says it's the Neurological Classification Guide. So that's what I'll call it. Anyway, it lists all the acceptable types of neuroscan results. There are a lot of them, for all the listed species known in the Empire, with a few variations. If your brain matches one of those for your species, you're safe. If your brain doesn't match but only by a little, you're typically also pretty safe. The doctors know what differences will manifest as deficiencies, and there's a small range of acceptable problems to have. If you're a narcissist you'll do okay. Same with being ambitious or being unusually obedient. But fall outside that window and you're in danger.

I was and am very far outside that window.

Last time I said my caregiver droid really liked me. It's not generally supposed to like its charge, but I think more like a droid than an organic unit even though I am one, so it made an exception for me. That means I get to see my official file right before the passwords change every month, when the droid uploads all its notes on my behavior. It has to open the connection anyway and the linked computers can't tell that it's displaying the data for me to see. Any changes ever made by any officer or doctor or enlisted trooper are put here. My file is public access since I'm Certified Defective, see - if I do anything wrong they want to know. And that's how I found out that they're looking for an excuse to cull me. It's right at the top of my file, and it has been for a very long time. Because of how different my brain is, I won't ever be a perfect DC unit. I won't even be a good one. Every month I scrape by with a grade of "acceptable", even though I have no violations or reports of tardiness or disciplinary actions listed. I haven't ever made a single mistake that wasn't dismissed as me being stupid. But because of my neuroscan results none of that matters.

The Emperor and his various mouthpieces have said many times that it's a kindness to cull those with bad brains. I hear a lot of talk about how we couldn't ever live happy lives or be normal or anything like that. And maybe they're right. They probably are. They have a lot more education than I do. But it doesn't seem right. If I can do my job as well as I do it, why does it matter what my brain is like? How can it be bad?

Anyway.

My caregiver droid just said I was wrong to think something like that. And it's right. I am wrong. Being alive is a gift I was given. And they own my life, so they can take that gift back if they want. I know that. It's the first thing I learned. Really the first thing I learned. It's made me work hard to not get culled. And yes, it's culled, not killed. You can only kill sentients, not organic units. We don't count. Any of us. Even the normal DC units could be culled, because officially it's our contract owner - the Emperor - who decides what to do with us.

Every day we're alive is a gift.

I tell myself that when I'm overwhelmed or scared or upset. Every day alive is a gift, and my contract owner is kind, and the officers and troopers I serve are kind.

But now you know that I shouldn't be alive, and if that makes you hate me, I'm sorry.


	3. Entry 3

So I folded and organized all my rags, scrubbed out my blanket in the 'fresher sink and hung it to dry, checked my ration bars for old or stale packages, worked a little on the flower picture I’m etching into the permacrete under where I sleep, cleaned the rest of the permacrete because it was getting dusty, turned my work shift in to the laundry port in the wall to be cleaned, used the ‘fresher myself to clean up, watched today’s space opera episodes so I’m all caught up, and decided to talk to the recorder again, because it’s too early to go to bed and besides my blanket is still drying out.

My caregiver droid has told me more times than I can count that space operas aren’t real holonet dramas, meaning that normal sentients don’t take them seriously. They’re made quickly, cheaply, and with subpar scripts and actors. But I won’t use that as an excuse to stop loving them. I don’t think I can. With them everything makes sense – emotions are clearly and easily expressed so I know what everyone means, and sometimes the actors even speak a little like I do, assertively but without a lot of emotion, because they’re focusing on what to say. I do it because I don’t want to make a mistake and words are the best way to communicate what I’m saying, but I guess those sentients do it because they’re memorizing their lines. I wonder if they’re contracted out like I am, because some of these space operas have been going on since I was a baby and the actors are all the same.

There’s one I love a lot, from Alderaan, called _Amor en el Tiempo de la Republica Antigua._ It’s in their language, which I don’t know the name of but I speak pretty decently, and it’s about two families, one the ruling House of Alderaan and the other poor farmers from the southern continent. The eldest daughters of both families fall in love, but they can’t be together because they’re from different classes, and because Princess Aurelia Ximena is going to be Queen one day. My caregiver droid says it’s not based on a true story even though Queen Aurelia was a real person, and that things aren’t like that on Alderaan anymore, but I don’t care. I want to go there someday, maybe, and visit her where she’s buried. A lot of sentients do that on space operas – they’ll go to visit where those they love are buried, and then dramatic things happen. I’d like a dramatic thing to happen to me.

Anyway. That’s not why I’m talking to you, future someone. I’m talking to you because I forgot to tell you about some important things. Specifically about how my typical day goes. If I’m doing this so someday there will be a you, listening to my story, or reading it, you should know that much.

I wake up at 0500 every morning. It’s dark still then. I have a little tiny window in one corner of my closet that lights up during the day, but there’s not even a bit of light there when I get up. I change out of my sleep shift and into my work shift – once a week I turn one of them in for laundry, and my sleep shift becomes my new work shift and I get a replacement sleep shift later that day – and then I put on my shoes and I go to my caregiver droid for my work assignment. Normally it's a predictable pattern, and because I usually clean floors I work through the entire wing where I’m assigned in a seven-day cycle. I work in the residential building, specifically in the section assigned to intelligence officers who are stationed in or near the Palace. In my file it says I was given that job because I’m not intelligent enough to be a security risk. Once I have my assignment, though, I set my blanket over the etching I’ve made in the permacrete and leave my closet and lock the door behind me. Then I go to the main Domestic Corps supply area, and my ident tattoos are scanned and the supply officer in charge gives me the bucket and scrub brush and class-C cleaner that’s got my designation on it – all of us who clean floors have our own equipment, and it’s our job to replace them if we lose or damage anything – and then I’m dismissed to go to work. I have to be at my station by 0545 and ready to start work by 0600, which is an hour before most of the intelligence officers have to get up. At the beginning of the seven-day cycle (my caregiver droid says this is called a ‘week’) I start in the long private hallway leading to Ysanne Isard’s door. I don’t know her formal rank, but I like saying her full name. I start with her because she’s in charge – the head of all Imperial intelligence, and I mean that – and she likes the wood floor outside her door to be polished to the point that she can see herself in it.

She said that to me, once. Not in a mean way, either. It was my first day assigned to her wing, and she walked right up to me and asked me to stop work and look at her. And I did – she’s a severe woman in an Imperial uniform with a long braid, or she had her hair in a braid that day anyway – and she said “I’m only going to tell you this once, girl: one of the perks of being at the top is privacy, and another is luxury. This is my hallway, and my floor, and I want to see my boots in the reflection when I walk. I know you’re only here once a week, and I can’t change that, unfortunately. But, if you ask for class-C cleaner from the supply officer, there’s a polish in it that will last until you come back. If you scrub hard enough. I’ll give you two weeks, but if I’m not satisfied, I’ll complain. It’s the same trial run I give my men. Do you understand?”

And of course I nodded and said “Yes, ma’am,” and she left and I went and got the class-C cleaner the next day and worked all night to get her floor perfect. She actually gave me a “Fair” classification in my file after that, and she’s always careful not to get in my way when I work. I wonder if she thinks I’m not actually as stupid as my file says. But it’s because of all of that that I do her hallway first. I’ve gotten really fast at it, too. I can get the whole floor cleaned and polished in an hour. If I get there on time, it’s done and drying when she opens her door to go to work. She gets up early, before everyone else. I guess when you’re in charge you have to do that kind of thing.

I work until 1730, making my way down the halls that I’m assigned to and getting more water for my cleaner if I need it. I don’t get a lunch break like some of the characters in space operas do, which is sad. Exciting things always happen on lunch breaks. But at 1730 I do get a mealtime, and all of us in the DC get to eat together in the big hall off of our wing. You need to get there fast, though, because after 1800 they turn off the ovens and the food gets cold. It’s usually nutritional mush – ration bars with milk and more vitamins added – so it’s never very good, but it’s a lot better hot than cold. Trust me on that. There isn't ever enough for more than one bowl either, which I  don't like, but it's hard to get any other food and I don't want to waste my ration bars by eating them when I can go to the big dining hall instead. One meal a day isn't so bad when you get used to it.

After mealtime we go back to work, until 2100. You’re supposed to have everything done by then. They check on you, too. They send a droid to look over what you cleaned and grade it, and the grade goes in your file. But after 2100 I turn in my scrub brush and my bucket and my class-C cleaner and I go back to my closet. As long as you’re quiet and don’t cause a disruption you can stay awake as late as you want. I usually watch whatever space opera episodes I missed, because my caregiver droid will download them from the net for me during the day, and then I’ll maybe use the ‘fresher, and then I change into my sleep shift and go to bed. If I can’t sleep, I talk with my caregiver droid. It’s teaching me a couple of droid languages, so I can talk to more than just it or others with vocal processors that speak in Basic or whatever they use on Alderaan. I’m really fast at learning languages. That’s what my caregiver droid says, at least. And maybe it's right? But I don't know any other sentients to compare. Most space opera characters only speak the one language though, so maybe I am faster than average.

Anyway. My blanket is almost dry, and I’ve rambled for long enough. I’ll leave you there for now, and hopefully I’ll talk to you soon.

Later, future someone.


	4. Entry 4

I'm back to work now - you'll forgive me if I didn't detail every excruciatingly dull part of my exile to my closet, future someone. I know from my lessons as a kid that some planetary cultures consider diary to be the highest form of art, but for me it's something I do to fill the gaps in the hours. I spent most of my childhood in lessons, actually. Totally alone except for my caregiver droid and the holonet space operas. Twice a month I'd have to meet with a doctor who would compare my academic and mental progress with a typical development chart, and I passed, because I'm still alive today. Still allowed to be alive, I mean. That's something. A big something.

Part of me wonders if you'll like this weird rambling style of recording, future someone. Since it doesn't follow any established literary form. Though apparently on Madra the rejection of an established literary form is itself an established literary form? I don't know a lot of things, though, so I could be wrong. _You're_ probably wondering, though, why I bothered talking to you again if it's been a while. Because last time it was just the first day of my medical leave and all that. And I mean I think it's probably nothing? But if it's not nothing, then kriff, something might finally be happening in my life. Something exciting, even. And it might even happen to me because of my assigned work! You'll forgive me for being excited I hope, future someone, it's just that finally, _finally,_ I might have an adventure.

I'll start at the beginning. It's the end of day one of the seven-day cycle (week, _week,_ I _have_ to remember that word, I can't look stupid, not now) so this morning at 0545 I was outside Ysanne Isard's door with my scrub brush and my bucket and my class-C cleaner getting ready to begin work. Only this time it was different. This time I could hear voices on the other side of the door. One of them was Ysanne Isard's, or somebody who sounded a lot like her, and the other was a human-sounding man I didn't know. I don't know a lot of sentients, though, so that wasn't a surprise or a strange thing. The strange thing was that they were talking this early, before anybody else got up. That's a little weird no matter what, especially because everyone in Imperial Intelligence keeps a pretty consistent schedule. But it's not my job to listen at doors, or to listen to anything at all except orders, so I started work on the floor. I added the right amount of concentrated cleaner to the water that was already in my bucket and took my scrub brush and stuck it all the way into the solution (that's another word I learned in my lessons, by the way, and one that I use a lot, because it has two meanings, and not all words get to have two meanings, so this word is special) and pulled it out and got to scrubbing. The cleaner burns my hands, so after a while I have to use a rag or two to shield them. That doesn't really help, though, because my rags aren't waterproof. I wish they were.

Anyway, I had gotten done with the floor right by Ysanne Isard's door when that door opened. I didn't look up because you're not supposed to look up from your work unless asked, but I could tell that both the man I'd heard and Ysanne Isard were in the doorway. They were standing and talking there, and I couldn't help but overhear a little bit.

"Have you gotten anything out of that Rebel spy yet?" she asked, and I could tell there was annoyance in her voice. Like I said before, she's head of all of Imperial Intelligence, and she probably does really like being in charge.

"Regrettably no, ma'am," the man answered, and somehow I knew he was unhappy to tell her that. "She's resisting all attempts to extract information. I'm afraid I'll be forced to kill her."

"Have you learned nothing serving under me, Waryn?" Ysanne Isard answered. "Torture doesn't accomplish anything. At least, not on its own."

That did scare me a little. I knew - everyone knows, I guess - that Imperial Intelligence will torture sentients to get information. Bad sentients, or sentients they don't like, or sentients they decide are bad so they can torture them. Any time an Imperial says they're going after a bad sentient I don't believe it. I believe they're going after somebody, but not that they're bad, I mean. But I was surprised they were talking about this with me right there. Unless it wasn't important information. I kept scrubbing the floor and tried not to pay attention.

"Are you sure we can talk about this with an audience?" the man - Waryn, I guess - said. Hearing him talk made me nervous. I knew it was me he meant when he said that.

"The IDC unit?" Ysanne Isard asked. "It isn't trained to pay attention."

I turned my head just a little bit, and it was actually because there was a rough spot on the floor that caught dirt and dust and held on to them and I really needed a good angle to scrub at it, but I did look up just a little bit out of the corner of my eye. Ysanne Isard was watching me, and the look on her face was different from the words she was saying. It was like she knew I wasn't a droid. Like she knew I had a brain and could think.

Like she was testing me.

I didn't look at her for long, and I hope she didn't even realize I was watching her through the hair that was falling into my eyes. I think she probably did, though. She's a spy, and you have to be good at watching sentients to be a spy.

"All right," Waryn said. "If you say so." They walked down the hall, talking about the best way to get information from a spy and disagreeing about the effectiveness of torture. It made me shiver to hear how disconnected they were. After that I was alone, though, and it wasn't even a big distraction, since I finished all my floors exactly on time. So like I said, future someone, maybe this isn't important at all and I'm just a little too eager for something to happen to me. That's okay, though, because I can at least say I've seen the only sentient ever to give me a "Fair" rating again.

And if she is testing me I think I can pass. I won't say a word about this to any of the other IDC units at mealtime - I didn't today, either - and my recorder isn't connected to the holonet or the internal Imperal palace computers, so no one can access its data except me, unless they break it apart. But no one even knows I have this, since I fished it out of the trash really quickly one day and smuggled it back and fixed it with my caregiver droid's help, and I hide it underneath all my ration bars when I'm not using it, and my closet has never once been inspected.

If she is testing me, maybe she'll buy my contract.

Maybe she'll save me.


	5. Entry 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic descriptions of violence in this one. Just so everyone is warned. Also yes, there is a brief visit to the Lusankya, hence the graphic depictions of violence. This isn't how you get to the Lusankya in EU canon, but I figure there's more than one entrance.

She... she was testing me. Ysanne Isard, I mean. She was testing me and I passed but I wish I hadn't.

It was a whole week before I saw her again, early on the first day of my assignment cycle, just like last time. Except unlike last time she stopped in front of me as I was scrubbing the floor and she spoke to me.

I saw her boots first, since that's where I was looking. And I could hear and feel her coming down the hallway. It was maybe 0630, so I was halfway done. Her boots left prints in the wet cleaner, because you have to let it air dry for the polish to set. She stood in front of me and I felt bad because my hands were all red from the cleaner and my hair was loose and hadn't been cut for a while so it was kind of a mess. But I didn't stop working since she hadn't told me to stop, I just scrubbed around her. But then she said "Stop," and I did, and I tucked my hands up under a fold of my work shift so she didn't see them. I heard her take something out of a pocket, and then she spoke again.

"Lift up your hair and undo the back of your shift so I can scan your ident tattoos," she said, and she sounded like she was used to being obeyed. Less harsh than the supply officer or the officers working at mealtime, but more like she'd hurt me if I did something wrong. So I pulled my hair around my neck and reached up to pull apart the hook and loop fasteners that go down the back of my shift in a seam. The sleeves slipped down around my shoulders and I felt really exposed. But then I lifted my hair up and leaned forward so she could scan me. She must have pulled a handheld reader out of her pocket. I closed my eyes and waited - being scanned always scares me for some reason - and when I heard the beep that meant a successful reading I fastened up the back of my shift without being asked. I'm glad she didn't hit me for that.

"So. Imperial Domestic Corps Organic Unit 14532XGV," she said. "I'll call you XGV. It's less of a mouthful. Look at me."

I looked at her.

"I have an assignment for you," she said, and punched a few commands into her handheld reader. "Since you kept your mouth shut last week and demonstrated that you're not nearly as dense as the idiots who wrote your original file think you are."

"You _were_ testing me!" I said, and then immediately put a hand over my mouth. She hadn't told me I could speak and I have _never_ slipped up before, not like that. But when I looked up at her again she was laughing to herself.

"You're a lot smarter than they think you are, XGV," she told me. "Stand up and come with me; I've reassigned you for today. Leave your things there - someone will take them back to the supply officer. Don't say anything unless I tell you to. Where we're going is a classified location and your security clearance is nonexistent."

So I did what I was told - I stood up and followed her and tried to get the worst of the knots in my hair out with my fingers. She walked quickly, but not as quickly as I do when I'm trying to get to my assigned workstation, so I could follow her easily. I was sort of behind her and to her right, like an aide or a bodyguard in a space opera, and I think she liked that. We went out of the residential wing for Imperial Intelligence, and then down some stairs and out of the residential building completely. There was a narrow bridge across empty space stretching between two buildings, totally enclosed in glass. I'd seen bridges like that on space operas but never in real life. I'm glad I was focused on following her or I might have gotten scared. It took a long time to get to where we were going - we passed through what had to have been the actual real proper Imperial Palace that I've never been in, with everything in red and looking fancy and expensive, and then across another bridge into another building that looked like an office or someplace people worked, and then down stairs into an old basement and through a very battered and ugly looking door.

Behind the door was a very well-lit lift, looking sleek and polished and totally out of place. And I could feel my excitement growing - this was real spy stuff, like in _United Medical_ when Avie and Amara had to work with Imperial Intelligence to steal a big sapphire from a madman who wanted to use it to create a terraforming device and hold all of Coruscant hostage. Ysanne Isard must have been able to tell I was interested.

"You have questions, XGV?" she asked, and laughed again. "I'm not going to answer any of them, but I will tell you this: if you do well today, I'll give you one gift, and that's the gift of choice. You'll get to say no to ever doing anything for me again. I know you don't talk, and I know you're obedient. If you stay a regular IDC unit I won't blame you. You'll be useful there."

Useful? I've been thinking about that ever since she said it, and I'm still not sure what she meant. I'm not useful to anybody. I'm just lucky to be alive. But back to my story.

I didn't say anything to that, and I think she didn't mind. Once we got down to some very, _very_ low level we got out of the lift and stepped out onto what had to have been a ship of some kind. It looked like the sets of _Star Destroyer Iron Fist_ , but even now that makes no sense to me. A whole Star Destroyer? Underground? I think it must just be an efficient form of architecture, and that's why Imperial Intelligence uses it. I mean there were others who weren't Intelligence there. Stormtroopers and a few officers, and droids. We walked even more after that, and went down a couple more lifts and up a third one, and finally we got to one last door. Ysanne Isard reached up and punched in an access code on a panel beside it, and it slid open and on the other side was a room with a chair and table and lamp and a big mirror along the wall next to the table, and a computer terminal on the other wall. A man was there, looking at something on the terminal, but when the door opened he turned around and saluted.

"At ease, Waryn," Ysanne Isard said, and walked into the room. "Come in, XGV," she told me, so I followed, and when I got inside the door slid shut behind me.

Waryn was tall and broad-shouldered, taller than me or Ysanne Isard, and his face was hard and blocky. "Her?" he asked disbelievingly, looking at me, and I recognized his voice from last week. "You brought her?"

"We needed a body," Ysanne Isard said. "Somebody who can follow orders and be suitably frightened, with the right height and hair color. And I can always have it culled if it talks."

I shivered. She was right, though. She could easily have me culled, here and now, and no one would ever know. So I just said nothing.

"Well," Waryn said, and looked at me, "she certainly looks the part of a prisoner." He sighed and sat at the table and spoke directly to me. "You. You came here because we need you to do something for us."

"What is it?" I asked, because he was looking at me like he wanted me to answer.

He pointed to the mirror. "Behind this wall is another room, with a Rebel spy in it. We need you to help us extract information from her."

My mouth got very dry. "How?"

Ysanne Isard sat down next to Waryn and looked at me too. "You don't have to do anything, XGV. You just have to stand where we put you and don't say anything, and don't look directly at the spy."

I was confused, but I didn't say so. Being here was strange and scary and full of rules I didn't understand. So I just nodded. At the time I wasn't sure if that meant I was saying yes or just saying I'd heard what they were saying. I still don't know.

They took it to mean yes.

There was a secret door in the wall with the mirror, and the mirror itself wasn't really a mirror at all but a two-way viewscreen they could use to see into the next room. I didn't get to see into the room through the screen, though, because when the secret door opened Waryn shoved me through it. I tripped, because my shoes had no traction, and I couldn't stop myself from crying out when my knee smacked into the polyblend floor.

"Stay down, you," Waryn said, and I did. I didn't understand. He'd said he needed my help. This was help?

He turned to face the other person in the room. I looked up through my hair and felt my heart start pounding. It was a young woman, older than me but not by much, with close-cropped pale blue hair and dark skin. She was naked, and badly beaten, held upright by a pair of binders suspended from the ceiling. Her eyes opened, and they were almost black, and expressive and wide. She was looking at me, and I quickly turned my eyes back down to the floor. I remembered my instructions.

"We found another one of your friends," Waryn sneered at her. "Hiding in our Domestic Corps. Did you really think we wouldn't notice?"

"Elfa?!" the woman cried, and the pain in her voice froze me in place.

"You already said you'd rather die than tell us anything," Waryn continued - he sounded imperious, furious even, far different from the civilized man I'd just heard on the other side of that door - and then he pointed at me. "So I brought her in to see what happens to traitors. If you won't talk, maybe she will."

"No," the woman said, and she was pleading, really desperate. I could see her trying to move and wriggle free of the restraints, but one of her legs was weaker than the other and she kept slipping. Whoever Elfa was, she must have been really important.

"No?" Waryn asked, and there was false pity in his voice. "So you've changed your mind, then? You'll talk, and buy your life, and hers?"

It was a trick, and I wanted to scream that, I wanted to tell whoever this woman was that I wasn't real and I was only there so they could get her to tell them everything. But every time I thought about opening my mouth I could see Waryn in my mind, pulling a blaster out and shooting me in the head, culling me right on the spot. And I wanted to live. I still want to live.

So I said nothing.

The woman was silent too, for a long time, and then I heard her take a deep raspy breath. "I won't talk," she said, and even I could hear the pride in her voice. "I won't talk. Do whatever you want to me."

And they did.

It wasn't just Waryn, it was two other officers too. They hit her, and took her down out of the binders and hit her some more. Her weak leg might just have been hurt before but when they'd finished with her it was definitely broken in more than one place. One of the officers cut her back with a vibroblade, carving his name there. And... and she bled, and she screamed, and she called for Elfa and told her to be strong, and I curled up on the floor and cried.

When it was over, Waryn kicked me hard to get me to move back out of the secret door, and I crawled through into the bright office room from before. Ysanne Isard was standing and looking through the two-way screen.

"Nicely done, XGV," she said. "Our little problem child will shortly be telling us all she knows. She thinks you're her wife."

I won't walk you through the journey back to my closet, future someone. I will tell you I turned down the opportunity to be of further use to Imperial Intelligence, and I was polite and quiet and didn't say what I was thinking. That's a good thing. That's why I'm still alive.

They should have beaten me instead of her. They should have hurt me and broken me instead of her. And I could have tried to do more to stop it, to say something, to put myself into the scene beyond crying in the corner. I know they found her more important. I know they thought she mattered more, and I know she does matter more. I even know that I'm not really a sentient, and I certainly don't have a name as pretty as Elfa, or even a name at all. But I'm... I'm angry, like a sentient would be angry. Because she was so badly brutalized, and she didn't deserve it, and I finally have a chance to use that word. Brutalized.

I almost feel brutalized myself just from knowing it happened to her. But my feelings don't really matter.

I'm done talking, future someone. Maybe for forever.

Bye.


	6. Entry 6

They should have hurt me.

They should have hurt me a lot more than they did.

I should have been the one they stripped and strung up and beat, not her.

You probably think it's odd, future someone, that I'd break a months-long silence just to start with that, but it's all I can think to say. It's all I've been able to think of since that day, anyway. Every moment I'm awake from the first alarm to right before I fall asleep, it's _they should have hurt me more_ , over and over and over again. Because she didn't do anything wrong. I mean. I guess she opposed the Empire, but doesn't everyone? Nobody actually likes who's in charge. They say they do, and all the holonet shows act like the whole galaxy loves how things are. But I don't think it's that simple.

Ysanne Isard said she was a spy. I've seen spies on the holonet, and she didn't look at all like them. There must have been some mistake.

And she was really upset when she thought I was Elfa, and Elfa had been captured.

They should have hurt me more.

They should have hurt me more.

I should have done more to fight back, only I _can't_ , not if I want to live, but who wants to live if all you do is follow orders and do what you're told? But they're kind to me, and they have been kind to me, and I'm lucky to be alive, I don't deserve to be alive.

But that's what I was taught, and if the Imperials hurt someone who didn't deserve to be hurt, then they're not always right, and -

\- and maybe they were wrong about me, like they were wrong about her.

No.

No, they can't be.

They're the reason I'm alive, they can't just be wrong.

Can they?

They're wrong about me being stupid. They're wrong about me not understanding orders or being able to follow them. They're wrong that I'm worthless - I've had the same cleaning assignment for years and the only day I missed was the one that Ysanne Isard requisitioned me for, and I know if a unit performs unsatisfactorily it will get moved to another labor detail, so I must be doing at least one thing right. They're wrong that I'm slow, because I'm not, I know I'm an efficient worker, I'm always able to get everything done. They might be right that my brain isn't normal, but it works.

I'm probably missing something, though. I know I'm not very intelligent. And besides, real life spies probably know what holonet spies look like and try not to act like that. They'd be bad spies if everyone could recognize them, or at least they'd have to work very hard. I saw an episode of _Star Destroyer Iron Fist_ once that had some spies, and they didn't do a lot of sneaking around? More a lot of punching things and cool fights. The woman I saw didn't look like she was good at punching things. Then again I don't think anybody looks like they're good at punching things when they're all bloody like she was.

She was really bloody.

I want to help her, if I can. I want to do something, to find her again. Except I wouldn't even know where to start. Could I find my way back into that underground place? Maybe. I remember how we got there. I remember exactly how we got there. Out of the intelligence wing and through the main palace and across that awful awful bridge...

... maybe.

Have I decided to do this? Have I really actually decided to rebel? Is this even rebellion? Is rebellion doing something you're not supposed to do, or is it grander than that?

This is hopeless. I can't get to her, I can't help her, not even a little. She's probably dead by now.

But I have to try _something_.

I have to try something.


End file.
